


Will the Circle Be Unbroken?

by actual_iggy



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: American Civil War, Children going to war and dying, OC-centric, Vaguely Described Sex and Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 19,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4694843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actual_iggy/pseuds/actual_iggy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason G. Jones is a simple Southern man. He was adopted onto a plantation at age five, sent to school at eight, and ran away to join the Confederate army at twelve. He discovered he was an immortal creature called a "nation" at age fifteen. J.G. thinks he's satisfied with his little farm and simple life, but a call to come to New York and a very pretty girl with strange values and a stranger ability have caused him to have to re-visit the things in his past he'd promised to never think of again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> There isn't really a warning for this, but don't read if you can't take characters being horrible people. J.G. is in fact made to make fun of Southern stereotypes, so lots of ignorant opinions and such. Just don't read if you don't like it. :3

_I was scared out of my mind and I didn’t know why, didn’t know what was after me, just knew I’d been told to run ‘n’ run ‘til I couldn’t run no more ‘n his voice, the Frenchman’s voice, was echoin’ in my head tellin’ me to run ‘n not stop but I had to stop ‘cuz my breath was harsh in my chest ‘til I was breathin’ razorblades ‘n tastin’ their metal in the back of my throat‘n then I run to the cabin out in the woods and curl up ‘gainst the wall, and let my breathin’ tear my chest apart with big, gaspin’ breaths and then a dark face appears over me, lookin' real concerned and I start to cry 'cuz I'm caught fer sure now and the dark-skinned woman picks me up and she's rockin' me and sayin, 'there there lil' one, you don't gotta cry, I ain't gon' hurt you...' and carryin' me into the cabin and then my cryin' stops with the rockin' and I fall to sleep..."_

It’s been three years since I was found by Sarah behind her and the other girls’ cabin, and it’s the hottest, driest summer of my whole life. I figure, well, she figures, I was about five when I got found, and that would make me almost eight now. I wasn’t made to work like the other boys as soon as I got big enough to be useful. Well, I was, but not as hard,‘cuz I may be tanned browner than an Indian, but I’m definitely a whiteboy. That’s ‘cuz I got straight blondish hair and real pale blue eyes compared with the other boys and their dark colors. I was always told to stay outta sight of the overseers 'cuz Sarah says it ain't done, slave girls takin' in whiteboys, so I'd be takin' away and sent to the town orphanage far away. She snuck some straw from the big barn and made me a big hat with a wide brim to pull down over my blond hair to hide it, 'cuz not even a mulatto boy'd have blond hair and blue eyes ever.

It all went well 'til one day my hat fell off in front of Judd, one of the meanest overseers on the whole farm, and he took me to Mister and threw me down, sayin, "Looky what I found slinkin' about in the orchird, sir!" And I started cryin' and beggin' to not be sent away, since this home's the only one I got!

"-and please don't have Sarah beat neither 'cuz she didn't mean nothin' by it and only wanted t' make sure I was safe by takin' me in 'cuz I was just little and all alone and I didn't even know my own name or who my ma and daddy is or where I come from so please, please sir let me staaaaayyy!"

Mister glares down at me until I stop carryin' on and then his look sorta softens and he says "How old are you?"

"I-I think almost eight. I come here when I was four or five, Sarah decided, sir, and I been here for three summers."

"Alright. Until I figure out what to do with you, you may stay, and carry on sleeping outside in the slave quarters. And at least try and make yourself of some use."

"Yessir, Mister." I say, and run outta there.

That was the scariest day on Big Farm, I think, by a long shot.


	2. Life on Big Farm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. describes what it's like to work on Big Farm.

I do as Mister said and make myself useful.

I'm kinda little still, and I burn in the summer heat, so I ain't a good fieldhand. I ain't a girl so I can't do laundry or help the cook neither. So I usually don't do nothin', and lie in the shade of the cottonpuff trees and listen to the workers singin'. Their songs sound real cheerful, 'til you listen to the words, and then they're all about bein' free someday. Mostly they're kinda hopeful-soundin', which I think is a nice sound. Sometimes I wish I could do somethin' about the free thing, but I dunno what good a uneducated white orphan could do, so I just gotta accept it like everyone else.

  
Mostly, when I do work, I just fetch water for whoever needs it to be fetched. Sometimes I’m told to climb a roof to put on a new shingle. Once, when our farm first got one, I got told to stick my hand in the cotton machine to un-stick it. There was a loud grindin' noise and I cried out and held my bleedin' hand to me when that happend. Jonah, one of the boys set to work cotton got a charcoal and made a mark on the stone wall right by the thing, sayin' it meant how many people got hurt doin' the machine, and ain't I pleased to be the first one on it?

  
I almost lost a finger to that thing and we ain’t allowed to put our hands in it anymore ‘cuz we all know how to work it now and if we die nobody’ll be able to replace us for a long while ‘cuz they’d have to learn to use it or they’d all just keep dyin’ and it ain’t ee-co-nomni-ical, if your slaves keep on dyin’ before you can get any good amount of cotton run through your big machine. ‘Least that’s what Mister says.

  
Mister also says I ain't a slave and gotta stop referrin' to myself as if I was.

  
My favorite work-days are when I help fix up the machines, ‘cuz I might only be probably-almost-eight, but I always know how to do all of our new machines from the North, so I teach the others how too. I also run water in the hotter days, with a bucket on my back with a dipper hangin' out, 'cuz it don't make no sense if we're all dyin' of thirst instead'a pickin'. Most times, I look after the little kids, who are too young to work pickin' in the fields yet 'cuz they ain't big enough to carry any amount o' cotton fluff worth anything. They go from babies that can barely walk to probably-five-year-olds.

  
One boy is my age but he’s only got one leg so he can’t do much. His mama says he was born that way, but she tells Mister that he got bit by a snake and had to get the leg cut off so he isn’t just taken out n’ shot like a lame workhorse. Mister don’t tolerate those that get born weaker, but he’s real understandin’ of accidents happenin’, ‘specially of little kids gettin’ snakebit on account of not knowin’ to leave ‘em alone yet. The one-leg boy helps me look after the little kids and chops firewood, ‘cuz he’s probably-eight and so not a little kid no more, one leg or not.

  
Only time I got hit with the switch ever was for standin’ in front of the overseer so he wouldn’t get to Timmy-with-one-leg, who’d fell and tipped over a bucket of water. The man was furious at me and said whiteboy or not I was gonna git it. It hurt worse than anything in my whole life, and I cried and cried in Sarah’s lap, til she stopped pettin’ my hair and asked in the quiet way of someone who’s kinda shocked at what they’re seein’ if I was hurtin’ anymore. I wasn’t, which was strange. Sarah said the red marks on my back were fadin' away, right before her very eyes. I soon learned that that’s another thing makin’ me special, is I heal real fast. Sarah thinks I’m an angel.

I dunno ‘bout that, but I’ll take it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It picks up! Don't give up on me now, guys!


	3. Independence?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. finds out where Independence is and questions why everyone thinks the slaves are so dumb.

Mister says in the falltime when it’s a sure thing that I’m a probably-eight, I’m being sent off to school in Indy-pen-dance. I asked Sarah if she knows where that’s at, and she said she’s lived here on Big Farm her whole life so she don’t know nothin’ ‘bout any Indy-pen-dance. Timmy-with-one-leg don’t know neither. Askin’ around, nobody on the whole of Big Farm seems to know. Well, I bet Missus and Mister know, but I ain’t gonna ask _them_.

  
So instead I ask Missy, the daughter of the house. She’s a little older than me, but that just means she might know more, ‘cuz she’s left the farm with her daddy on occasion. Besides, I know she can read and write, ‘cuz she went to the public school, which puts her above most everyone else I asked on the scale of knowin’ stuff, I bet. I bet you know lots ‘n lots of stuff when you can read, ‘specially if you go to a school.

  
Walkin’ towards the big house, I find Missy sittin’ on the porch, watchin’ one of the house-ladies do the washing and talkin’ ‘bout the weather and how hot it is and how glad she is for lemonade and ice tea, ‘cuz otherwise she might just burn up. I don’t like lemonade ‘cuz its sour, but ice tea’s real sugary and leafy and cool and one of the best things on all Big Farm, I think. Maybe besides Ol’-Cook-Hattie’s pecan pies, it’s best. Missy sees me and smiles.

  
“Hi there, J.G. Come to find the shade?”

  
Everyone on the farm calls me by my first and middle letters of my name. The first letter stands for my full name Jason, and That’s Mister’s name too. I was named for him since I’m the only whiteboy on all of the farm. My middle letter don’t stand for nothin’ ‘cept what Sarah thought when she saw me: Gee. Sarah wanted to put be above them slave boys who only got one name, so I got two. I guess if I wanted to I could take Mister’s last name, Fredrickson, but I don’t much like the sound of it, so just J.G is what I am.

  
“No ma’am. I just wanted t’ ask y’ somethin’.”

  
Missy pats the place on the porch next to her and I sit. The wood’s smooth and warm with the heat of the day, but the sort of warmth that makes you feel cooler, ‘cuz you’re also in the shade. I feel bad for the washer-lady, but at least she’s got her hands in the cool laundry-water, and Mister told me that slaves don’t get as hot or cold as us, and that’s why they’re made to work in all the weather, ‘cuz they don’t mind it and whitefolks do and it ain't like they know enough to do anything else. I dunno about that, having heard Sarah complain after a day of workin’ in the rain or heat just like anyone before, and havin' watched Jonah figure out why the machines ain't workin' a million times, but as a kid I guess I don’t really know nothin’ yet.

  
“I got told I’m bein’ sent away for school in the falltime.”

  
Missy nods and tells me that she’s also bein’ sent away, only I’m going to the charity boarding school run by a generous and rich planter up in Indy-pen-dance and Missy’s going to a fancy girl school in the North, which is where all the good schools are. I ask her if her school’s in the North, where’s Indy-pen-dance? She smiles at me in her pleasant way.  
“It’s in Missouri, I do believe. One of the states that borders the Northern line. You ought to be right at home there, bein’ close as you are to the blacks here.”

  
She’s smilin’ still as she says it as she knows better n’ anyone that I don’t got a ma or daddy like she does so Sarah and the others are my family for me. The Northern border, as well as I can figure, is the area above which you ain’t allowed to have slaves. Bein’ a dirt-poor orphan and so not a slaveholder it shouldn’t matter much to me what side I’m on on the line, but I do like bein’ on the South side better, even with havin’ never been to the North. I hear it gets cold there in the winter. Colder than it gets here, even. It might just even snow in Missouri at my school.

  
Wowie, to touch real snow. Missy says it snows sometimes here, but it ain't never done it in my life! 


	4. Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mister takes J.G. and Sarah in to town to buy J.G.'s school clothes.

When I do go to school two days from now, I won’t be allowed to wear my outfit no more. Makes me look too much like a real pale Negro, Missy says. ‘Cept she, like her daddy, uses the real mean word for ‘em sometimes. 'Least Sarah says it's mean, after she caught me sayin' it to someone else. I’m of my opinion that just ‘cuz whites are supposed to take care of ‘em and make ‘em work for us, don’t mean we gotta be mean and call ‘em names.

  
My outfit as it stands now is a gauzy thin white shirt and blue pants that was too long when I first got ‘em but now go to my knees. It’s the only thing I got to my own name, and even if I can’t wear it, I’m gonna pack it in my bag. That’s the other thing I got. An old saddlebag to put my stuff in. And my knife that Mister gave to me on Christmas last year. I guess whiteboys get things like knives on Christmas and coloredboys only get to not have to work. That ain't too fair, but I ain't gonna say nothin', 'cuz my complainin' won't ever do nothin' but get ever'one down, Sarah says. The knife's long as my arm from my wrist to my elbow and real jagged on one end. Missy says it's a huntin' knife and the jagged edge is to carve things with.

  
Today I’m going with Mister to get fitted into a fine uniform.

  
I’ve never been off of Big Farm and I ask if Sarah might come with us, since she hasn’t neither. Mister looks at her, then at me, and I give my best “lil' boy who’s about to leave his only home forever makes one request, sir” look. He says if Sarah can find someone to take her workload she may come. We already asked Anna, one of the housegirls and Missy's nursemaid, and she said alright ‘cuz she likes goin’ outside and don't got much to do since Missy ain't much of a little girl no more anyway. So with Sarah sittin’ quietly in the back of the wagon and me in the seat by Mister, we go to the town of Allan.

  
As the wagon rattles 'long past other big farms in the area, I can hear the slaves in the fields singin':

  
_"Swing low, sweet chariot_   
_Comin' for to carry me hoooome_   
_Swing low, sweet chariot_   
_Comin' for to carry me hoome"_

  
Mister looks at me and tells me to cut it out when I go to join in 'cuz whiteboys don't sing slave songs and that's the way of it. I ask him what I'm to sing, if not what I been taught, and he ain't got nothin' to say to that, so I look back at Sarah and make a face by scrunchin' my nose and crossin' my eyes and she smiles and then puts her hands over her mouth to keep from gigglin' as I make a real stern face with my eyes still crossed and pretend to wave a switch at her. Mister tells me to stop foolin' around and face forward or he'll show me just what his crop on my backside feels like and Sarah too, by God. I stop and sit straight up and look serious while Sarah keeps her hands over her mouth to keep from laughin'.

  
Mister rolls his eyes and after a bit asks me if I know how to drive a wagon. I don't, 'cuz I never was big enough to during haymaking times. Mister shows me how you click your tongue at the horses to make 'em go and how you pull back the reins to make 'em stop, and pull 'em one way or another to make 'em turn. He lets me drive for a bit, which in spite of us only headin' down a straight road, I find to be a lotta fun. I tell him how much I like doin' this and ask if I'll get to drive wagons at school. Mister smiles and tells me,

  
"You just might, boy. One thing I know for sure is you'll get to learn horse ridin' and numbers and such."

  
School don't sound half bad right now and I turn around to look at Sarah and I tell her I'll teach her horse ridin' when I come back to Big Farm after my schoolin', which I'm fully gonna do, and I'll teach everyone numbers, too, and I'll read books and newspapers and crop-price papers to 'em, since slaves ain't allowed to learn readin' but they sure like knowin' stuff and there ain't nothin' bad about readin' to those that can't, and then Mister tells me 'J.G, turn around for Pete's sake' and we're gettin' into the town so I sit up straight and try to look less like a farmerboy and more like a townboy.

  
The lady in the clothes shop is kinda snippy to her poor slave girl who is runnin’ back and forth tryin’ to keep up with the flood of requests. It ain’t my place to say nothin’ and it ain’t Sarah’s neither but we give the poor thing pitying looks as her mistress puts measuring tapes on me and puts needles in the blue coat that's way too big but gettin' better. I ask the shop-lady what her girl's name is and she says she don't know and don't much care, it's just "you there" or "girl" to her. It still ain't my place to say nothin' but Mister knows all of his slaves' names and he got two-hundred-fifty plus one whiteboy raised with 'em, so I am of my opinion that this lady ain't a very likable person, if she ain't even bothered to know her one girl's name.

  
Mister surveys me in my finished uniform of a blue coat with red ribbon tie and blue pants goin’ down to just above my knees and Sarah says if Mister don’t mind her sayin’, sir, I look pretty fine in my new outfit. Mister nods and agrees that yes, I do look a whole lot more civilized in it. Then Mister sees my bare tanned feet and I’m told we are going to the shoes shop because I sure can’t go to school in Indy-pen-dance with no shoes or stockings. I wonder why we can't get shoes in the clothes shop, but I follow Mister anyway. I ain’t never had shoes before, and while Sarah's got her feet bound in leather since she got blisters and don’t want ‘em to get infected, those sure ain’t no shoes. We're both excited to see the shoe shop.

  
I come out of the shoes shop with shiny black shoes and white stockings that stop right below my knees, leaving ‘em stickin’ out between my pants and stockings. While I was gettin' my feet measured over and over again, Mister asked of Sarah why she had leather on her feet and when she said, “’S blisters, Mas’r.” he asked the shoemaker if he had any worn cheap shoes to put on her feet so as to get his leather strips back. So Sarah’s got shoes now too, and I know when she ain’t in the field, maybe when she's tendin' for a baby or the chickens, or too old to do nothin' but watch those that are too little to do nothin', some of the other girls’ll wear her shoes and wear ‘em 'til they’re worn out for good.

  
We come back through the gates with Sarah in the back of the wagon and me in the seat by Mister. Everyone who ain’t workin, and some that had stopped to watch the wagon, all wave at me and Sarah and cheer for me. I wish that night, in a big pile of the other boys n’ me, that the next days don’t ever come. But they do, and soon I’m bein’ dressed by candlelight to get put on an early coach to Indy-pen-dance. Everyone stops and waves me off as the wagon goes through the gate with me in it for the last time in my whole life. I know boys ain’t s’posed to cry, but there’s a lump in my throat that’s makin’ my eyes tear up and if that’s cryin’ then I’m cryin’ as all of those that was my family cheer and call out goo’bye, goo’luck J.G to me.

Gosh, I don’t wanna leave the only home I ever had…


	5. School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. meets the other schoolboys.

Today is my first day at Herbert Johnson’s Charity Academy For Boys. The school looks like a rich planter's mansion, with dark windows and a big wood door. It scares me, but I been through worse with bein’ switched and all, so I’ll manage. A slave girl who’s only a little bigger than me is waitin’ for me at the door. She's got her dark hair back in two braids that end in fuzzy black puffs on the shoulders of her lavender-colored dress. She does the dippy thing all the housegirls know to do, and leads me in. I ask her name, and she looks down at her worn shoes with her big dark eyes, clasps her hands in front of her on her white apron and says Mary. I tell her I’m J.G and ask her if the school’s Mister is a nice one. She tells me that it ain’t her place to say and I leave it at that. That means he ain’t a nice Mister, so he probably ain’t too nice to the boys neither.

  
Soon a man appears, followed by Mary who’d left to go get him. The man is tall and has gray hair combed back and greased down so it he looks like a real-live statue, carved from stone. He’s wearin’ a good black suit and has a sharp face and hooked nose that make him look a lot like a turkey-vulture waitin’ for some poor boy to drop dead of fear so as he can eat.

  
“And I suppose you are our new student?” His voice is stuffy and high-brow, even more so than Big Farm Mister was.

  
I look down at my feet and say “Yessir. Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

  
“Hmmph. Don’t look at your feet as if you are guilty of some crime, boy.” I look up in a hurry.

  
“Better. Your name, as I have it entered, is Jason G. Jones. Is that right?”

  
“Yessir.” I dunno what else I could say. I dunno where Mister got that last name neither, but I like the way it sorta twangs in your mouth. You say that name, and everyone can tell right away if you’re a Southerner or not ‘cuz the Southerners make it sound twangy and I hear Northerners sound real sharp and stuffy when they talk. They don’t twang and drawl like we Farmerboys in the South do, and from what Missy says, they don't sing as they work like we do neither. That must be why they’re so tech-no-lolo-gy minded and boring.

  
“What does the ‘G’ stand for?” Speakin’ of sharp, Mister’s voice seemed like it could cut a poor farm boy in half if it wanted to.

  
“Nothin’ sir, just ‘G’ is what it is, sir.” I swear my voice ain’t shakin’ one bit, no sir.

  
“Very well. You come from… The Fredrickson Plantation, in Allan, South Carolina, correct?” I dunno what he’s tryin’ to gain by makin’ me confirm all this but okay.

  
“Yessir.”

  
“And when was your last birthday, Jason?”

  
“I-I dunnno sir… I came to Bi- the plantation when I was just small so I dunno.” Then all at once, prob'ly 'cuz I'm thinkin' about it, the date surfaces out of information I thought I’d forgotten long ago.

 

“A-actually sir, I do remember, now that I think… It’s December the 20th.”

  
“And since you are eight years of age that would make your date of birth December 20, 1849, correct?”

  
“I suppose so, sir. I ain’t too good at math.”

  
He gave me a very harsh look. “You AREN’T VERY good at math, you mean?”

  
“Yessir, sorry sir. I aren’t very good at it, sir.” Guess I did grow up talkin’ wrong after all. I wanna go back to Big Farm so bad. Sarah and Timmy and Missy wouldn’t get mad ‘cuz I said I ain’t too good at things ‘stead of I aren’t very good...

  
“Jason, the correct phrase would be ‘I am not very good at math’ not ‘I ain’t too good’ or ‘I aren’t very good.’ Consider this your first lesson in proper grammar and enunciation.”

  
“Yessir. Thank y’, sir.” I don’t got any idea what grammar and an-ounce-ee-ay-shun are, but I’ll try my best and learn ‘em good.

  
“I’ll have Mary take you to the dorms and instruct you in the schedule here. The other boys are upstairs doing their schoolwork. You will not begin class until tomorrow as today is Sunday.”

  
“Yessir. Thank you again for takin’ me in, sir.” He huffs a little bit, I think ‘cuz I ain’t s’posed to say ‘yessir’ or somethin’ but he don’t say nothin’ about it, and the slave girl watches him go and then gently puts her hand over my arm. She ain’t allowed to touch me I guess. I tell her, “It’s okay if you gotta put yer hand on me to get my attention. I don’t mind it a bit if it’s just that.”

  
She smiles a little sadly at me. “Thank you for saying so, young sir, but I’m not allowed no matter what or Master will have me beaten.”

  
Seems this grammar stuff is important in the servants of the school too. 'Least Mary don't talk like Sarah or any of even the Big Farm housegirls did. Guess I better learn to talk right fast. I follow Mary upstairs to a big room with tables in it and about thirty boys goin’ from my size to grown up sized doin’ things like writin’ on papers and readin’ in books. They all wear the exact same outfit as me and they all turn to the door as it opens. Mary dips and says,

  
“Sorry to interrupt your studies, sirs, but I was told to bring the new boy here.” She dips again and leaves. I’m real nervous as all the boys survey me. One asks me,

  
“So what’s your name, then?”

  
“I’m Jason, but y’all can call me J.G, and I’m from Fredrickson Plantation in South Carolina.” I’m nervous and don’t wanna mess up. One of the boys a little older than me with real orange hair and dark green eyes comes over and smiles in a friendly way.

  
“Fredrickson? My father did business with them, buying cotton for the textile mills in New York.” He don’t sound like me or Mister or anyone else so I know he ain’t from here. I’m pretty sus-pit-chi-ous of him.

  
“I know I sound like some backwoods mudcrawler to most of these boys, but you talk pretty darn funny too. Where’re you born from?” He backs up a bit. My sus-pit-shun look must’a scared him. Good. I ain’t gonna let some big funny-soundin’ boy push me around, by God.

  
“I grew up in New York City. We moved to Louisiana to take over my grandfather’s sugar plantation in Baton Rouge. I was sent to the public school here instead of travelling all the way back to Boston for my old school.” He looks a little sad now. Probably homesick like I am. Bet he misses his ma and daddy. Bet he wants to go home to be away from us loud Southerners.

  
"Puttin' it so you as a dumb hillbilly understand him, he's a Yankee and an outsider n' you best avoid him always!" calls out a lean, mean-lookin' boy with brown hair all messy n' curly on his head. "Course, you two might get along, the Yankee and the hillbilly!" The other boys all sorta smile and a couple snicker.

  
I get mad and start towards him 'cuz the only way to teach a badmouther a lesson is to go n' punch 'em right in that same bad mouth but the yankee boy holds me back by grabbin' the back of my coat. "No, don't do that! You'll be whipped for fighting, I've seen it happen!" I stop. I sure don't wanna get whipped my first day. I glare at the brown-haired boy one last time and jerk the back of my coat out of the orange-haired yankee's grip. Actin' like nothin' that mean boy said bothered me, I look around the rest of the room.

  
"So where d' we sleep?" Orange-hair answers for me:

  
"We sleep in the dormitory of course. I'll show you to it as Mary should have."

  
"Gosh, she's likely gonna be whipped, for not showin' me around like she was told..." I feel kinda bad for her thinkin' of how shy 'n gentle she seems. And I know as well as anyone that slave or not, nobody likes bein' whipped and everyone forgets things sometimes. Orange-hair nods.

  
"It is a shame. I wish we lived back up above the line, where a girl like Mary could go to one of the colored schools in Canada instead of serving a white boys' school."  
"You're allowed to teach Negroes in the North?" I ask. Orange-hair looks at me strangely.

  
"Well, yes. Isn't education for them here at the discretion of their owner?" I shake my head really hard so he don't ever even try such a thing.

  
"No sir-ee! It's real real illegal to teach 'em to read or write, 'cuz it might cause an uprising, they say!" Orange-hair sighs as we go through a door at the end of the hallway.

  
"That's a pity. I bet there's some very smart blacks out there who will never learn to read and write because the Southerners are afraid of an uprising." He blushes as he remembers where he is and who he's talking to. "Er, I mean..." I wave it off.

  
"I hear you. If it were up to me, I'd teach nursemaids how to read at least so's they could teach the young'uns they bring up. 'Course the lawmen ain't gonna listen to the ideas o' one farmboy and his yankee friend." I sound real uneducated next to Orange-hair and his clippy fast, yankee way of talking. I notice that we both are looking kinda hard into a mirror set up on a wall in the empty dorm room.

  
I ain't never seen a clear image of what I look like before on account of having never been inside Big House for longer than a few moments and none of the cabins havin' a mirror. I'm kinda skinny, but not in a hungry sorta way, but lean, like someone who's worked his whole life. I'm tanned, in the parts where I can see my skin, which is my hands and face, real dark, which I could tell from lookin' at my hands back at Big Farm. I do got real light, pale blue eyes and my hair is straight and a sorta wheat-field yellow color, all golden-y and nice. There's that one part of hair that goes down my nose that I can't make stay anywhere else, and I got freckles specklin' my cheeks, and I bet lotsa other places I can't see too.

  
Orange-hair boy is tall and kinda plump but sleek, like he's been fed good his whole life but also had to work to get it. His hair is combed down, but I bet it'd look better all messy. He don't got freckles, which is weird for a boy with orange hair, but I guess up in yankee-land there ain't enough sun for freckles.

  
Sarah always said white farmerboys got freckles 'cuz God needed to at least try and darken us enough to keep us from sunburn and since sunburn on the face hurts the worst, He tries to protect us there first and most, makin' spots. For some reason, I can't stop lookin' at orange-hair's eyes. They're a real peircing dark green, like a forest at night. A real contrast to my eyes. I bet I got pale blue 'cuz I was born in wintertime when the sky is a pale light blue.

  
"We look a considerable amount different than each other, huh?"

  
"...Yeah." I don't got any idea what con-sit-er-able means, so I agree. It dawns on me that I don't know orange-hair's name. "Hey, you know my name, but what's yours? And who's that mean ol' boy with the curly hair who called me a dumb hillbilly?"

  
"The boy who made fun of you is named Jebidiah. The other boys call him 'Jeb.' His father is the preacher at the church we attend."

  
"Gosh, he sure don't sound like his daddy's holiness rubbed off any on him." Orange-hair smiles and almost laughs a bit at that. He sits on the edge of what I'm sure is his bed. I sit across from him on another bed in that row.

  
"I suppose so. My name is Rowan. Rowan McGuire. My parents moved from Ireland when I was a baby, so I grew up here in America."

  
Aw shoot, I was startin' to like him, and it turns out he's a 'tater-ni-... never you mind. I gotta sound civilized and I bet callin' even immigrant kids names ain't good. Besides, he seems plenty nice, even for a immigrant kid. I can't think of nothin' to say that ain't mean, so I just say, "Your ma and daddy are foreigners?"

  
"Yes. I'm aware of what you Southerners think of the Irish as a whole, which is only a little higher than what you think of your slaves, but I am American, because I was raised here." He gives me a look that's darin' me to say anything. I don't. Instead I ask him which beds are empty for me to take.

  
"The one you're sitting on is empty. Nobody wants to sleep next to a carrot-top future drunk, right?" I put my bag on the bed and sorta smile at Rowan.

  
"I don't mind it a bit! It ain't like any o' your problems are gonna rub off on me, so why shouldn't I sleep here if I wanna?" I hope I sounded acceptin' enough. I wasn't raised up to be nice to immigrant boys near the North Compromise Border.

"Now, Row, why don't you start teachin' me how to talk right so Mister don't have a conniption fit whenever he talks to me."


	6. Classes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. discovers that most eight-year-olds can in fact read.

Today's my second day at school and my first day of classes, and Row says he'll show me around. First off, we wake up at dawn in our soft feather beds with warm thick blankets and fluffy pillows. I, a poor farmerboy used to sleepin' in a heap o' coloredboys in a drafty cabin with three or so raggy, thin blankets thrown on us, find this to be pure luxury despite Row sayin' he thinks they ought'a replace the pillows and the blankets are a little scratchy.

  
When we get up, we all get dressed and the older boys shave and all of us go to the privy if we've gotta, and then we comb our hair. Mine's pretty gritty as I try to comb through it and Mary quietly suggests I have a bath after classes to get the dust out. Jeb implies to the other boys that I might have bugs from hangin' around all them Negroes and I wanna say that they're all actually pretty clean, but Big Farm did always have a fleas problem with the kids especially. It's why even the girls all had short hair, 'cuz fleas don't like it. And I got graybacks before, too. They made my head itch like crazy, stupid bugs. One o' the best things about bein' a coloredboy would be never gettin' hair-bugs. As far as Jeb and his comments, I just say nothin' and go back to workin' the knots outta my hair.

  
When we finish makin' ourselves presentable, we all go to breakfast, which is eggs and ham and sausage and fried potatos and toasted bread 'n butter and for the older boys coffee. For us younger boys we get orange juice to drink which I ain't never heard of before and find I like a lot. It's kinda sour, but not as sour as lemonade, which is nice. I ask Row if we might get ice tea here, and he says usually it's offered with our mid-day meal and our supper, and while he don't like it, there ain't nothin' stoppin' me from enjoyin' it.  
My first class of the day is readin' and penmanship. Row says that's the fancy word for writin'. The teacher's a young lady with sandy brown hair tied in a bun and honey-colored eyes. She's real nice, and pulls me aside to find out what reader to give me instead of makin' me show how dumb I am in front of all the others.

  
"Jason, is it?" she asks me. She's got a yankee accent. Must be a missonary or somethin', come to teach boys whose daddies can't send 'em to the good schools in New York and Boston. Maybe Indian boys too. I seen a couple of 'em that sit in the back of the class and keep to themselves. They stand out 'cuz they're darker skinned than most of us and they got raven-black hair and black eyes to match it. I sorta feel for 'em, bein' taken from a place without your permission and then bein' told ever'thing you thought you knowed was wrong. I'm gonna make an effort to be kind to them 'cuz we're both different than the others here and so might get along.  
"Actually, ma'am, I go by J.G." I tell the teacher. She smiles in a sort of worried way at me.

  
"Well, how about I call you J.G, but you sign your papers Jason Jones, okay?"

  
"What about the G?" I know there's probably a million boys called Jason Jones out there, so I gotta stand out with my G.

  
"Jason G. Jones, then?" She says, sorta relaxin'. I think she thought I'd put up more of a fight on her teachin' me to write my full name. I bet the Indian kids did and that's how she's approachin' me too.

  
"Yes, ma'am." I say.

  
"J.G, can you recite your alphabet to me?" She asks. I don't know nothin' 'bout no alphabet, so I only say,

  
"No, ma'am, I can't."

  
"Why not, J.G?"

  
"'Cuz I ain't never learned, ma'am." She puts her hand on my shoulder and sighs.

  
"J.G, you mustn't say 'ain't.' It isn't proper English. Instead say 'have not' or 'are not.'"

  
"Yes, ma'am."

  
"You haven't learned the alphabet, therefore you cannot write your name, correct?"

  
"Yes, ma'am."

  
"Here," she hands me a heavy blue book, "This is the reader for our eight-year-olds. We have two levels below it and five above. Can you read the first sentence to me?" I flip open the book to the first page with words on it. I don't know where to even start, so I look back up at Teacher and tell her,

  
"I can't read it, ma'am."

  
"Very well," she takes the book from me and hands me a slimmer, red book, "Try the first primer."

  
"I don't know what sounds the letters make, ma'am. I ain't- er, have not ever been to any school before in my life." I look at the book and the gold lettering on the front and feel my face gettin' hot. I know I'm gonna be readin' in the little kids' book, when the other eight-year-olds get the blue one, and that the others are gonna tease me for it. I must be tearin' up 'cuz Teacher looks real sympathetic at me.

  
"Oh dear... J.G, you musn't cry. Why don't I pick one of the older boys to take you, Christian and Joseph to the back room and tutor all of you? Would that make you feel better, having others with you?"

  
"Y-yes, ma'am..." I manage out. I point to Row. "H-he's been real nice to me... can he teach me?" She smiles and nods, then looks back at the class.

  
"Rowan, Christian, Joseph, come here." The two Indian boys and Row come to where we are. Teacher turns to Row. "J.G hasn't been to school before and neither have Christian or Joseph. Can you take them into the back room and teach them their alphabet and how to write their names?"

  
"Yes, ma'am." Row says, then turns to us three. "Follow me." We do.

  
In the back room we sit in front of the board. I look at the Indian boys and smile real friendly to them.

  
"Hello, I'm J.G. I'm from South Carolina. Where're y'all from?" They look kinda blankly at me. "Do you even know English?" I ask.

  
"Little bit." one says.

  
"Is it hard? To learn?" I ask. I been talkin' English my whole life and never thought anything of it.

  
"Yah. But must learn." he says. I nod. 'Course they gotta learn if they're gonna live around here. The only place I hear they talk Indian is in the frontiers. Row gets a chalk pencil and starts writin' the letters for us on the board. Soon he points to the first one and says,

  
"This is the letter A. It says 'ahhh.' Can you three repeat it back? A goes 'ahhh'."

  
"Ay goes ahhh" I say

.  
"Hay go ahhhh." the younger Indian boy goes.

  
"Ay go ahhh" the other says.

  
After we finish that, Row has us open our primers and shows us how now that we know the letters and the sounds they make, we can sound out words.

  
"Ssseee t-t... t-huh-eh..."

  
"That word is the word 'the.' It's kind of hard to sound out. You should memorize it." Row tells me.

  
"See... the... buh- ball." I look up at him, smilin'. "See the ball. That's what it says, ain't it?"

  
"Yes." He says, lookin' kinda proud of me. I'm real proud of myself. I didn't think it'd come so easy, almost like I'm 'sposed to know it. I bet if Sarah was here she'd be real proud of me too. "Lookit my lil' J.G.," she'd say, grinnin' like an idiot, "Lookit my lil' J.G. who kin read already!"

  
Then, a bell goes and Row says we are to go to music, and then to horse managment and ridin' from which a dinner-bell will call us to dinner and then after we eat we have three more classes, supper, study time, and bed. I can sing real well for my age, Sarah always said. 'Course mamas and them actin' like 'em gotta say that stuff, I guess.  
The music teacher is an old man, but he seems pleasent in a strict sorta way. Like he'll be nice if you don't do nothin' bad.

  
"Ah, yes, our new student, Jason."

  
"J.G, sir." I say as politly as I can manage.

  
"Our new student J.G, then." He says with a small smile on his face. "Well, J.G, can you sing us something so I may place you in the chorus?" I nod and think of somethin' that got a lotta high and low notes in it and come up with my favorite of the worker songs, and the first one I ever learned:

  
_"Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down,_   
_comin' for to carry me home!_   
_But still I know I'm heavenly bound,_   
_comin' for to carry me home!_   
_Swing low, sweet chariot_   
_Comin' for to carry me home_   
_Swing low, sweet chariot_   
_Comin' for to carry me home!"_

  
"Alright, J.G. Strange of you to pick such a song, but very good. Go stand up between Rowan and Jebidiah."

  
I do and then I'm handed a folder with words on it. Jeb looks as if he's gonna say somethin' about the fact I was singin' a slave's work song, but he don't say nothin'. I can't read the words on my page quite yet, but Row, seein' how confused I am, nudges me and says,

  
"Don't worry, just mouth along until you get it. You'll learn to read them soon enough."

  
Then we all start and soon enough we sound real good, with the boys whose voices are changed mixin' with us little boys.

  
_"As the blackbird in the spring, 'neath the willow tree_   
_sat and piped I heard him sing,_   
_sing of Aura Lee_   
_Aura Lee, Aura Lee_   
_Maid with golden hair!_   
_Sunshine came along with thee, swallows in the air!"_

  
Then we all take turns soloin' and then the bell goes and we're all goin' up to our dorms to change into clothes we can get dirty in. I put on my Big Farm outfit and ask Row if It's okay to go barefoot in the horsebarn. He says he ain't never tried, and anyway why don't I got boots?

  
"I grew up poor. I ain't even had shoes 'til a week ago."

  
"Well here, have my old pair. I've outgrown them and was looking to bring them to the orphanage, but you could probably use them more." I put on the worn leather boots and they're a little big, but they'll do. I'll grow, as Sarah always said when I had to roll up my pants legs. I stuff my pants into them and look at Row's outfit. He's wearin' a white shirt with puffy long sleeves and a dusty black vest over it. His pants are brown and stuffed into his darker brown boots. He's got a patch over a hole in one of the knees of his pants.  
"Goodness, J.G. You look like one of the servant boys like that. Where did you get such an outfit?" Row says, lookin' me over.

  
"...South Carolina?" I say.

  
"Well at any rate, let us go." And with that, we go to the horsebarn.

  
Each of us boys is allowed to practice our ridin' pretty free of supervision until the dinnerbell rings. I'm assigned a big, light brown mare named Juniper. I need to stand on the edge of the fence to get onto her back, but once I'm up there, I grab the reins, click my tongue like Mister showed me and she starts off at a fast walk. I'm feelin' real confident of my abilities and so I slap the reins a little and say, "hyah!" and she speeds up. This starts joltin' me around and soon I fall off into the dust.

  
"Ow..." I say. Juniper snorts in a patient way, standin' a ways off where she stopped after I fell. She snorts again as I pat her nose and tell her, "Good girl," and lead her back to the fence so's I can get back up and try again. I fall off five more times, and each time I go longer between 'em. By the time I hear the bell ringin', I can just put my heels in Juniper's sides a bit and she starts lopin' to the barn like she knows what the bell means.

  
Dinner is cornbread and honey with chicken and gravy and mashed 'taters, which are some of my favorite foods. We get ice tea, too! Then we go to speakin' class, taught by Mister, and then 'rithmatic and history and current events. Then we have supper, which is spicy shrimps (which I ain't tried before and like a lot!), chicken gumbo (which Row says the cook on his grandpa's plantation makes better'n here) and more ice tea.

  
As I get more and more letters and words down, Row helps me write a letter to Missy, since Sarah can't read or get letters. It takes me a whole three days, but I write my very first letter!

  
_deer missy,_

  
_lookee heer at yer lil jg writin to you alredee. skool is fun and we get all the ice tee we want. onlee bad thing is this boy calld jeb. hes reel meen an i no it aint ryt but i hoap he gits wats cumin to him soon. still i bet yer skool is reel fun to. do yew get to ryde horses there like we do. i met a reel nice boy calld row and hes helpin me with my writin and reedin. if yew go bak to big farm befor i do pleez let sarah no that im havin fun but i still miss her an the others sumthin teribl. i aint got nothin else to wryt abowt now so row says this is how yew end a lettr._

  
_yers_

  
_Jason G. Jones_

  
_ps sho sarah my name cuz i no shell be reel prowd of the fact i kin wryt my own naym._


	7. Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. realizes he feels strange around Rowan.

I turned twelve this year. That means, that if I was born in 1849, it's 1861 now. Row, who can read better than me, says there's a war that's lookin' to move even here to Missouri. He says the South part of the country went away from the other part and is fighting as something called the Confederate States. I wanna join in on that fight. I've seen the soliders go by with their gray wool coats and always one of the company carrying their flag which dependin' on the company and state they're from is different. Mister says we're all "too young to go to war, my eager rebels," so we ought'a shut up and go back to our studies. "Even once the rebels win we can't run a country with a bunch 'o stupid farmboys" so sit back and read and become good pol-lit-ishuns.

  
I can't focus on that, though. I got a big problem. It's been almost four years and I still can't stop lookin' at Row's eyes. I love how they're dark green, and I like how it goes with his hair. He's started messin' it up as of late and it looks a lot better than the combed-down richboy look he had before.

  
He helps me 'cuz I can't read and write like the other boys can. I know the letters, and I know words I've seen before, but I can't never remember what they all sound like for some reason. I sit in the dorm and read out loud to him, tryin' to sound out words I don't know. I like the way Row smiles and laughs when I mess my readin' up in a funny way, so sometimes I do it on purpose. I don't know what the feelin' I get in my chest when it's just us in the dorm room is, but it sure is nice.

  
One day, I'm really strugglin' with my blue primer, which is the readin' book for the little kids that I'm gettin', I swear. Row stops me and looks at me kinda funny. He asks me what's botherin' me. I tell him I feel weird when we're alone like this and I dunno why and I dunno how to make it stop 'cuz I got a feelin' I shouldn't feel like that so I dunno what to do.

  
He sorta gently takes my reader from my hands and sets it aside. He tells me he feels that way too, and he knows exactly what it is 'cuz he asked his big sister last time he got to go home for a holidays. Row says what we got is called the kinda likin' that all teenagers get for each other sometimes. I ask him what we're gonna do.

  
He smiles, says "You always were a bit of a slow one, J.G." and kisses me.


	8. Rowan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. learns more about Rowan's life and considers something his church told him.

I wanna be a good Christian boy, I really do, but church is so _boring._

  
All we do is sit and listen to Jeb's daddy talk about sin to us for two hours. Row told me to quit lookin' at the girls that come from their school to go to the church too, as ain't he good enough fer me? I like Row fine, but some of them girls are real pretty. We ain't allowed to talk to 'em, though. We just all file into our own sides of the big, open church, sit, listen and don't move, don't look anywhere but to yer front, don't do nothin'.

  
We had church back at Big Farm, I remember, but that was different. We did songs and stuff there. Here in Independance there ain't no singin' in church I guess. Also, when we get back to school, we don't got classes on Sundays, but we ain't allowed to do our work or nothin'. Sunday's a rest day, Mister says, and good boys don't work on rest days. I tell Row that we were 'spected to work on Big Farm no matter what.

  
'Cept I guess we got to stop early on Sundays. One day every few, anyway. I never really knew what day or year it was 'til I got to school, anyway.

  
One day, though, Jeb's daddy the Preacher explains how terrible and awful some paths boys can go down are. He says if any of us youngers are tempted to do anything terrible, it's the Devil tryin' to get inside of us, and he possessed us when we give in to it. I can feel Row get real tense next to me when he says that.

  
After church I ask Row why he got so scared.

  
"I suppose it just sort of got to me. You Southerners are very... intense with your religion, aren't you?"

  
"Y'mean it ain't like that everywhere?" I ask him right back. I talk better now, but I only talk my best when I'm around teachers and Mister. Most of the boys don't care if I sound like I just crawled outta the haywagon.

  
"There are places in the North where the factories run all week. Families may have religion, of course, but they have to work and thus cannot always go to church." Row looks at my expression and smiles. "My parents are Catholic, of course, but we always have our worship times. Partially because we're rather rich."

  
I really don't know nothin' of the yankee way of life. Come to think of it, I don't really know a lot about Row. Since we're gonna have relations, I probably should learn.  
"Hey, Row... you said yer family came here when you was little? But yer workin' yer granddaddy's plantation in Louisiana?"

  
"Yes, that's true. My grandfather left when my father's eldest brother was old enough to care for the younger ones. He was going to make his children a life in America, and ended up on a plantation. When I was a baby, he died, leaving the factories he'd made to his youngest son, my father, and the plantation to the eldest. My father then took my mother, five-year-old sister, three-year-old brother and one-year-old me to New York to take over the factories, and my uncle abandoned the plantation a few years ago, when I was about eight, and so we moved South and now I am here." He looked over at me, "Now, J.G., what about you?"

  
"I ain't got much of a story..." I start, but Row presses on, askin' me what livin' on a plantation my whole life is like.

  
"Well.. I ain't been there my whole life, and you know that, Row. As fer what it's like... It's hot in the summer, and colder in the winter. No one's ever seen the snow 'afore but we heard of it..." I didn't know how to describe to Row the smell of the grass toastin' in the summer heat, the feel of the breeze when yer sittin' under a cottonpuff tree to 'scape the heat... I don't think I ever could describe that right to someone.

  
"It sounds lovely. You must have been sad to leave." I hang my head and sorta nod. Row sees how upset I am, and puts his hand on my shoulder. "Well, at any rate... would you care to walk out to the haybarn with me?"

  
The haybarn is where we go when we got freetime and don't wanna risk Mary findin' us again. When we get to the top of the hill right over the big barn, I yell out, "Race ya down there!" and take off, Row laughing behind me.

  
We get there at about the same time 'cuz I'm faster but Row's still taller, 'cuz I ain't quit growin' quite yet. We slip into the door that's always been open a crack, and go deep into the hay, to make a little hollow in the warm crackly stuff.

  
I sit on Row's lap in the hollow and he kisses me first and it feels nice, his mouth on mine. We do that 'til we're both pantin' from lack of air and I'm feelin' hot so I start unbuttoning my blue jacket and he starts helpin' me and then my shirt and jacket are both off and Row's kissin' all over my chest and neck and it feels good when his mouth finds mine again and I help him with his jacket and shirt and then his hands are movin' to my belt and then the dinnerbell rings in the distance, and we gotta come apart again, pantin' still.

  
We ain't never gotten far enough to where we're both not wearin' nothin', and we both know we really wanna, and if it's like Preacher says, and the Devil tryin' to possess us, then maybe, just maybe possession ain't so bad.


	9. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. and Rowan are caught kissing.

I've taken to sneakin' into Row's bed at night because we can't always be slippin' out to the haybarn and we still like to be close together, even when we ain't kissin' and touchin'. Recently Mister caught Sammy Lawson, who's one of the older boys, with one of the older girls from the girls' school nearby in his bed. Boys here at school ain't allowed to have relations with anyone, and any boy who's caught with a girl in his bed is likely to be beaten. I can only assume the same's true fer a boy caught with another boy in his bed. So I always make sure I'm outta Row's bed before the rest of the boys are awake.

  
So the months go on. But one day, Row's on top o' me and we're both not wearin' our nightshirts 'cuz it gets real hot under his covers and we ain't been out to the barn in ages 'cuz it's wintertime and I'm likin' the feelin' of his mouth on mine and then the covers is pulled back and I hear Jeb go, "See, Mister, I told yew they were up t' no good!" and there's Mister lookin' the maddest I ever seen him and I get real scared as he grabs Row by one arm and me by one and silently takes us both to his office.  
Mister's office is this dusty, borin' place full of bookshelves and with a big desk in the middle. He sits at the desk and glares daggers at the both of us. Row's got his head held high, and I'm lookin' down at my poor bare feet as we stand there in just our white underdrawers. I promise I ain't cryin' from the fear but sniffles escape from me and tears drop onto the dark red carpeting anyway.

  
"You boys are in some serious trouble." Mister is good at the understatin'. "Do you have any idea what sin you were committing?"

  
"No, sir..." I mumble. Row don't say a word. I guess he got told it was okay to do what he was doin' even though he knew it was bad. Sorta wish he'd told me what he thought.

  
"You were commiting the sin of homosexuality. In the term of a devil-possessed boy like you, Jason, you were performing sexual acts with another male." Mister says, like it's the worst thing in the world a boy can do.

  
I wonder if devil-possessed boys are allowed to cry when they're 'shamed o' what they done. I sure hope so 'cuz that's what I'm doin'...

  
"I didn't know it was wrong, sir! I got told by Row that his sister said it was just somethin' all boys do at this time!" I plea. Row chimes in,

  
"Sir, please, J.G didn't know any better, honest! Let him go, please!"

  
Mister grabs my arm and drags me out the door. "Perhaps we can still save the younger of you, then. Follow me, Rowan." He says, and even though he's draggin' me so it ain't like I got a choice in the matter, "Come along, Jason."

  
We're goin' towards the whippin' post out back and I realize what's gonna happen and so I start screechin' like I'm bein' murdered and beggin' for Mister to not whip me, and some of the servants headin' to their quarters out by here stop and look at me with sort of a pityin' look but they can't do nothin' and as my hands are tied to the post I can hear Row beggin' Mister to not do it, but he ain't gonna listen...

  
I hear the crack of the big whip goin' through the air and then feel the terrible stingin' burn on my back and 'cuz I'm so small- only twelve- wrap 'round to my belly too and I start cryin' harder as it hits me again 'n again 'n then it stops and through my misery I can hear Mister tell Row,

  
"Since you're the initiator, and seem to be hell-bent on saving him yourself, you may give him the rest of the lashes. Do it until I tell you to stop. _Now,_ Rowan."

  
I hear Row whimper out how sorry he is to me as the terrible, awful pain starts again as my back gets torn open by the leather and then I hear Row cry out and Mister shout at him to stop talkin' to me, and then I pass out from it, it hurts so bad...


	10. Running Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. realizes that there is nothing left for him at school.

I open my eyes to Mary's face hovering over me. I gasp and try to squirm away 'cuz she scared me, bein' so close, but pain in my back stops me right in my tracks. Mary puts her hand on my shoulder, even though I know she's been told to not.

  
"Now now, Master Jones, you need to stay down so's those cuts'll heal up without scarrin' you too bad, alright?"

  
I nod, and she disappears. One of the boys younger than me, named Tucker, wanders in. He's got cornsilk yellow hair that's always stickin' up when he ain't wearin' the straw hat his ma sent to school with him. He ain't wearin' that hat now as he stares at me there in the infirmery bed. I remember on Big Farm my old hat I used to cover my blond hair.  
"You been whipped, J.G?" Tucker asks. Must'a heard about it through that awful Jeb. Bet he told the other boys 'xactly why he thinks I got it, too. Probably it ain't even the true reason, even if he does know that.

  
"Yup." I answer.

  
"It hurt?"

  
"Yup."

  
"Still hurt?"

  
"Yup."

  
"Did'ja cry?" I smile a little and shift in the pillows proppin' me up.

  
"Maybe a lil' bit, but I seen grown men start to howlin' when they get it and I didn't do that." Nothin' wrong with makin' a lil' boy think I'm tough, I think.

  
"Wowie, you're brave, J.G!" Then he comes right to the edge of the bed and looks more serious. "Did'ja hear that Mister e'spelled Row and sent him back to his daddy's farm in Baton Rouge? And that they's gonna move back up North to avoid the war?" He's so innocent, Tucker is, like I was when I first came here.

  
"I have now."

  
"Thought you should know, since you 'n him was friends."

  
"Very considerate of you. Thanks."

  
"Anytime. Bye, J.G, feel better soon."

  
"Thanks. Bye, Tucker." He leaves. I decide right then that no matter what Mister says, as soon as my back's healed, I'm runnin' away, finding some soldiers, and joinin' up the rebel army.

  
Two days later, I'm back in my own bed. I still got bandages on my back, and it hurts to move to fast, but in the dead of the night, I put my jacket, long underwear, jacket, long pants and old shirt in my bag, which I can sling over my shoulder. I also take along the packet of letters Missy wrote to me that Row helped me to read.

  
It's plenty easy to slip out the dorms with the rest of the boys sleepin' away in there, and even easier to slip out the big wood doors- the ones that scared me all them years ago, and easy to get out the gate. It's summertime, so it's warmish, but I'm used to wearin' shoes so I'm wearin' Row's old boots. I turn around to look at the school one more time, lookin' like a big rich planter house, the place that's been my home since I left Big Farm, and then I look at the road in front of me.

  
I start walkin' and I don't look back. I'm gonna start a whole new life now.

  
I'm gonna go to war.


	11. Army

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. joins the Confederate Army.

I been walkin', barefoot and sunburnt for a few days now, gettin' close to the bottom of Missouri, (alright, so maybe I did take a boat for a lil' while) and I've found what looks like a fort. I can't really tell from here, but I think their flag is the rebel one. I don't wanna get too close in case they're yankees, though, so I'm standin' on a hilltop squintin' at this bleary red white 'n blue square when a tall boy in a gray coat comes up to me and asks what in the hell I think I'm doin' up here.

  
"Tryin' to figure out if that there fort is yankee 'r not." I go back into my old non-school way of talkin' so's he knows I'm a Southerner fer sure. The boy, holdin' a line of different kinds of river fishes, cracks a smile and says he really hopes the fort ain't yankee 'cuz all his stuff is there. I laugh with him and we go there together. He brings me to the captain who's in charge of his company and who needs a new powder boy since his last one blowed himself up. He eyes me kinda suspicious, though.

  
"You seem kinda young to be a solider, boy. What's yer name and how old exactly?"

  
I straighten up and puff out my chest and say,

  
"My name's Jason Jones and I turned twelve years old on December 20, last year. I got sended 'way to a school in Independence, and I ran away 'cuz the rebel cause really speaks to my free and Southern nature, sir."

  
"Huh, if that don't beat all... A boy born on the day of South Carolina's seccession wants to join up our company. I'd be crazy to deny you, 'o course. One thing though: If you're such a smart little schoolboy, read that sign." He says, pointing. I can't make out the letters very well. I had this problem a lot at the school, too, where I couldn't see very well. I also just can't read, but I think it's 'cuz I can't see too good.

  
"I can't see the letters. Perhaps if you'd be so kind as to write 'em on a paper, sir?" The rest of the men and boys standin' around laugh a bit at that. The captain sighs.  
"Oh for Pete's sake. Coleman! Take him to the opto-tomitrist, will ya?"

  
"Yes sir!" The boy who found me takes my arm. "Yer gonna be able to see so good when Doctor Martin's done!" He sounds different then I or even the other boys at the school did. I ask him where he's from. "Born in Louisiana and brought up on the good riverboat Sally Mae! Drafted away from her since I'm a boy of good health over the age of eighteen residin' in the good Confederate States. What about you?"

  
"Fredrickson plantation, South Carolina. I got taked in when I was just little and lived there up until I was sent to school here in Missouri."

  
"Huh, you sound kinda like yer from Texas to me. Guess it's just my ears, huh?"

  
I nod, but I ain't all there. From somewhere in the back of my mind, more memories from before Big Farm surface. A blurry woman's face, talkin' with a Mexi-can accent, sayin' _"He's a Republic of his own now... the Republic of Texas... protect him..."_ I write it off as a dream 'cuz sure as Hell people can't be republics, and even if they could, I learned in school that the Republic of Texas dissolved in 1845, which is a few years before I was even born. Before I can start to wonder why I even thought for a second about the what if of people bein' republics to start with, we stop in front of a buildin' with a big pair 'o glasses on it.

  
"Doctor Martin!" Calls out Coleman. An older man opens the door. "Permission to enter with new patient?" The man smiles.

  
"Permission granted. What do you want, Joey?"

  
"I gotta new boy here who's in need of some eye help, Doc." He pushes me forward.

  
"Hiya, sir. Pleasure to meet'cha." I say.

  
Soon, after a long process of puttin' thin glass films together with me lookin' through 'em each time to tell the doctor if I can see better or not, I'm handed the round wire frames with the glass in 'em. I put it on my face. Everything is clearer, suddenly. I can see the little cracks and rocks in the dust around my feet. Looking across the compound I can make out the sign that says "Livestock" on it. What were white blobs before become tiny covered wagons near the entrance of the fort.

  
"Wow... Does everyone see like this, Joey?" I ask in wonderment. He laughs.

 

"Far as I know, yeah."

  
So, I'm taken in as a powder boy, meant to be a a private when I get a bit bigger. I'm fitted with a gray coat with gold trim about my size and matchin' trousers and a thin cotton shirt to put under it. I get a cap too. It's also gray with gold 'cuz the yankees got an offical uniform color so we gotta do it too and do it better. I also get worn old black leather boots about two sizes too big 'cuz while I like Row's old boots they're gettin' kinda tight and worn out. I'll still prob'ly go barefoot when I can 'cuz it feels best to me. Sure does feel good to have a coat to wear that'll keep me from sunburn, though.

  
I'm taught to fire the smaller .22s along with the other younger boys in our company- they're called Tucker (another one!), Sammy. Soon, we're marchin' towards gosh only knows where o fight! It sounds excitin' to go to places I didn't know exist. We might run into yankee companies along the way, so we might get little fights before we get there, and that scares me. But there's forty-five men and boys and one big cannon in our lil company, so I think we'll do alright.

  
When I was little and sittin' under the cottonpuff trees on Big Farm, dozin' off in the heat and listenin' to the workers around me singin' as they went, I never thought I'd be marchin' into war with a gray jacket on my back ready to fight boys in blue. I wonder if the other boys on their farms and towns and riverboats thought the same.  
And so, as we march along, me and Joey ridin' on the big horses pullin' our munitions and supply wagon, we start singin' to break the spirit of any yankee who thinks we're depressed by this war:

  
_I'll place my knapsack on my back,_   
_My rifle on my shooooulder,_   
_I'll march away to the firin' line,_   
_And kill that Yankee sol-dier,_   
_And kill that Yankee sol-dier,_   
_I'll march away to the firin' line,_   
_And kill that Yankee sol-dier!_


	12. Soldier Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. and the others of the brigade go swimming and run into a group of Northerners.

It's hot as Hell in this place, and me and the other boys are goin' swimmin'. We're camped by a river and there's a place by a bridge where there's a nice clear shady pool. A perfect swimmin' hole. We all dump our heavy wool jackets, caps and cotton shirts with our knapsacks which are really just bags we got from home that we fashioned to go on our backs with ropes and cotton strips. One thing we don't got a problem with is findin' cloths to make patches with or shine boots. We do need to hunt for our food though, 'cuz we can only keep stuff so long. I hear the yankee army's got preserved foods made in a factory. Yuck. They can keep that stuff. I'd rather starve then eat salt-pork and chemical-filled veggies the rest of my life.

  
My company stops a little way from the bridge and we all take off towards the hole. Stripped down to our waists, all us boys from the whole brigade scream and whoop like a wild pack 'o Indians as we race each other to the water and soon the sound of our shoutin' 'n splashin' fills the air. The olders and officers are left to discuss the strategy and drink and stuff without us young'uns gettin' in the way or makin' trouble, and we get to cool off, so everyone wins.

  
I show off and dive down to try and grab somethin'. I get a rock and soon we're all seein' what we can grab in the murky, cool water. Joey comes up with a big crawdad by the tail and all us farmboys gather 'round to look at it.

  
"Roach 'o the river, they call these things." He announces. "I do opine that if that's true then real roaches must taste like the nectar of God!"

  
I always found that sayin' weird, so I say so: "Yeah but what kinda nectar does God have? He ain't a bumblebee or butterfly or nothin'."

Joey looks at the crawdad and then at me and says, "We-yyl... maybe since God created all 'o life, He can make nectar in his hands if he wants. Or maybe he just makes it in the form 'o the best foods, which sure ain't our rations!" We been eatin' salt-pork for a long time that one of the other companies raided from a yankee camp, which is why I know I don't like it. We're all real sick of it and hope other food presents itself soon.

  
"Yum, ya mean like home-made biscuts 'n thick chicken gravy?" One boy asks.

  
"Back at the plantation our cook made real good fried chicken and pecan pie!" I say, and the others are lookin' real hungry at the thought.

  
"Peach pie, fried catfish and ice tea?" Another chimes in. Soon all of 'em are shoutin' out what their Godly nectar is, and Joey yells for 'em to be quiet.

  
"I think, that the best food in all the world is my mama's crawdad and chilisauce! Y'all can like yer biscuts and pies all ya want, but in my mind nothin' can beat good cajun cookin'!"

  
All the others agree that that's good food. Then the crawdad sorta hisses and we all wanna hold him since he seems pretty steamed about bein' held by his tail like that. Joey lets us all hold it and one boy gets himself pinched and we're all laughin' and splashin' at him and havin' a good time.

  
Soon, though, we hear voices with accents that don't sound a thing like ours. Yankees. Or Indians. Both are out to kill us, we know. We all kinda huddle under the bridge, staying as quiet as a pile of ten boys in a river can be. I clamp my hand over my mouth to keep a yelp in as somethin' brushes at my foot. Probably a crawdad or turtle. Maybe a big fish. Scared me half to death, though. It was all slimy and stuff. I wonder if I can eat a turtle. I'd 'spose you can eat anything which you can catch and cook. I wonder what turtle tastes like. Huh. Either way, we gotta focus in case we end up havin' to fight.

  
"Hey, look at that! We can swim there, guys!" shouts one of the yankee boys.

  
We rebels all look at each other, assessin' what we got to fight 'em off. We're mostly farmboys, so we can all climb trees lightnin' fast and most can prob'ly throw rocks with decent accuracy. I stuck my huntin' knife Big Farm Mister gave me for the Christmas I was eight in my boots in case I needed it, and I know some 'o the other boys do the same, but we all left our rifles back at the camp because we wasn't thinkin' o' huntin' or battlin'. Joey Coleman, who at 19 is the oldest of us, motions for all of us to follow him as he heads for the bank where our boots are hidden under a bush. We may be a bunch of farmboys, but we ain't stupid. At least, we don't think we are.

  
One of the yankee boys is sittin' on the bank, keepin' watch. He sees us and cries out in surprise. The other boys come runnin' fast. They're all rangin' in age from about Joey's size to one little boy, maybe the same age as my Company B's powder boy, Benny, whose dark blue coat must be the smallest one they got. All of us, rebel and yankee are frozen, starin' at each other. We know they can see us in our gray and light blue pants, and they probably heard us talkin' like Southerners, and they know we're starin' at their tailored blue coats and knowin' they're trained to kill us. Joey is the first to talk.

  
"We were all just leavin'. Y'all can have this pool if y'like. We're goin' berrying."

  
The little yankee boy speaks up.

  
"I wanna ask, actually: What kind of berries grow around here that won't hurt us? We're awful sick of our rations, but we don't want it to end badly if we eat local foods." The other boys, who looked shocked at first that anyone'd talk to a rebel then murmer in agreement. I bet they're thinkin' of some poor member of their brigade who made his final mistake with the local berries.

  
Joey scratches his head, as if he don't really know why the yankee kid don't know this stuff. "Well, 'round this time of the year there's blackberries and huckleberries, and probably a few wild veggies still left too. Be careful with those things though. If y'all mess up and pick poison parsnip or poisonberries instead, it'll be yer last meal. I just don't mess with the veggies 'cuz even I can't always tell, not bein' from around here."

  
I don't understand how they'd ever think bright red poisonberries are okay to eat. I also can tell poison parsnip (which is called in Sam Browne of my company's Guide to Flora and Fauna of the United States book Hemlock, and I always called cowsbane) and wild veggies apart fine, but I guess it's one of those things you gotta grow up doin'. I bet these yankee boys don't even know what wild veggies are s'posed to look like. They might all poison themselves and die, even. That thought makes me sadder than it should. I can't help gettin' sad at the thought of that poor little boy who don't even look twelve twitchin' and convulsin' and frothin' at the mouth with cowsbane poisonin' til his lungs can't take air no more and he a-phyxiates to death. Poor thing.

  
"We can show y'all what's good to eat, if ya want. Ain't a good fight if all the enemies is doin' is gettin' poisoned and I guess we're all sick 'o that salt-pork, hey, Joey?" I say, grinnin'. Joey, and for the matter the other boys all look at me like I'm crazy, but then, the yankees ain't hurtin' us, so in the end we all guess there ain't no harm in bein' friendly, 'long as they're still friendly too.

  
Soon ten boys in cotton shirts, black boots and gray caps are leadin' a dozen blue-capped boys through the woods, shoutin' back 'n forth. We get to the berry patch we'd seen on the way up here and are soon fillin' our emptied knapsacks with the purple berries. I'm explainin' to the little yankee what bad plants look like, since he says he wants to be a plant expert when he gets bigger and the war's over, and I don't see no harm in spreadin' important facts like this around.

  
"See, this here bush might look good, but it ain't. It's poisonberries. They taste sour and burnin' in your throat and eventually you'll throw it all back up along with whatever you et or drank before the berries 'n probably die from it."

  
A few other boys, even some of our own, join the group as I go to a still, shaded part of the river and point out a bushy green plant with a cluster of white flowers on top. "This here thing looks a lot like a wild parsnip or somethin', but it ain't. It's called water hemlock. Back in South Carolina we called it cowsbane 'cuz if your cow et it, she'd be dead within the hour." I pick up the plant and use my knife to cut the root open to show the hollow inside. "See how it's all hollow, which ain't like a carrot or parsnip at all? It tastes sweet, like a wild veggie at first, but then it burns in your mouth and y' start to seizin' 'n frothin' within a few minutes if ya swallow even a bite of it." The boys all seem to shudder as one at the very thought.

  
"What do you do if someone does eat only a bite, to give them a chance to live?" Asks one 'o the older yankee boys. "My brother ate some last month, and if only we'd known... It was only one bite, after all."

  
"You gotta get charcoal from the fire into their belly, which might be hard since they clench up 'n shake like a demon's got into 'em. But you gotta force their jaws open and get it into 'em, then just hope for it t' soak up the poison. If y'know you et it by accident, then drink all the water, milk, or whiskey you can to dilute the poison, maybe even so much your belly gets overfull and ya throw it up before it can hurt ya!" I say. I learned all 'o this from Ol' Cook Hattie on Big Farm, who'd been there since she was just little, made t' take care 'o Mister from the time he was born, and knew everythin', it seemed. Also one time I had to drink water mixed with mustard powder 'til I ran outside and threw it all up one time when I was little 'cuz I ate some poison on accident.

  
Our lesson on what we can and can't eat done, we all go back to the rest of the boys in the hot, sticky berry patch. I feel the sharp prick of a skeeter bitin' at my neck and I smack it and look at the blood spot on my hand. I hear a yelp from a yankee that got bit and turn to his direction and yell, "Y'all better slap that skeeter off 'o you before he gives you the fever!"

  
The yankee boys go on to all complain about the heat and the skeeters, and we rebels ask 'em what berrying is like up in their land, if not hot and buggy. They say they don't do much berrying up North 'cuz if they ain't rich sons 'o businessmen and factory foremen they work in the factory floors from the time they're just little, and even sometimes the coalmines. We tell 'em how berries are a big part of our food here in the South 'cuz we're mostly all poor farmboys and riverboat brats and a couple sons o' planters, and how workin' inside in a factory sure sounds better then workin' a field out in the glarin' hot sun sometimes.

  
Before we can start to argue about farms versus factoriees, Joey continues the previous conversation by askin' the bluebellies what their favorite foods they miss are.

  
"Clam chower's one of the best things! You have to try it if you're ever up north!" One says.

  
"Taylor ham and eggs on a kaiser roll is my favorite!" Another says.

  
"Cod!"

  
"Dried-out salmon! My father used to import it all the way from Oregon Territory!"

  
"Succotash on toast!"

  
It's strange how different we are from them. We talk different, we look different (lots o' the yankee boys look to be immagrants) and we eat different, too. They're actually real nice, for all I've heard about yankees. They got different music from our cheery tunes, too, it turns out.

  
Joey starts it by hummin' then singin' as he picks the best of the berries, and the rest of us join in, 'cuz we wouldn't be rebels if we didn't know "Dixie Land":

  
_"I wish I was in Dixie, Hur-ray! Hur-ray!_   
_In Dixie's land I'll take my stand to live and die in Dixie_   
_A-way, a-way, away down south in Dixie..."_

  
The little yankee boy is the first to counter us with their favorite song we've heard at all 'o their camps we passed by, "Battle Hymn of the Republic":

  
_"Glory, glory, hallejuah!_   
_Glory, glory, halleujah!_   
_Glory, glory halleujah!_   
_His truth is marching on!"_

  
And so, Johnny Reb and Billy Yank pick berries side-by-side. We're all havin' fun 'n laughin', interruptin' each other and pokin' fun at how the other side sounds, and the in the middle of my shoutin' _"I wish I was in Dixie, HOO-RAY, HOO-RAY!"_ over their _"When Johnny comes marching home again, Hurrah, hurrah!"_ I see him.

  
He looks a lot like me, only in the way of we might be related, since his hair's darker blond and he ain't wearin' glasses. A part on his hair sticks up, too. He's wearin' a blue uniform, and I dunno why, but I wanna take my knife and fight him right here. He looks at me, and I can tell he feels the same. I quickly make my way deeper into the bushes where he can't see me no more. I feel kinda shaky afterward and Joey asks what's the matter and I say I just feel sick is all, probably the heat, so I go back to the shade of the river for a bit, put my feet in the cold, clear water, watch the lil' water skimmer bugs slippin' around the surface lightnin' fast, and think about that strange yankee.

  
Strange. I feel like I know that man, but if he really is a yankee, and not just a Southern boy who's workin' for the North, I can't possibly. It's real strange.


	13. Fever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. gets sick.

We’re gettin’ into territory that none of us know anythin’ about, ‘cept Joey, ‘cuz bein’ a riverboat brat from Lousiana, he’s been all up-and-down the Missisippi and a couple other rivers besides. There’s still trees though, and one thing boys like doin’, war or no war, is climbin’ trees. We’re all racin’ each other through ‘em shoutin’ and laughin’ one day when the branch gives under me and there’s a loud rip as I catch on somethin’ and then I’m caught and stopped. Joey drops down and comes to look at me. My toes are right above his head. “Got yerself stuck there, J.G?” He asks, hardly containin’ the stupid grin on his face. More ‘o the boys are droppin’ down now to look at me hangin’ there.

“Shut yer mouth ‘n git me down!” I say, strugglin’. I’m stuck by my coat, the thick wool at the shoulderblade area holdin’ fast in the tree. As such I can’t much move my arms or I’d’ve pulled myself back up already.

“Looky here ever’one! J.G Farmboy’s got himself stuck up in a tree!” The other boys are lookin’ way too amused and I swear soon as I get down from here they’re gonna git it and git it good. Joey fakes a look of wide-eyed innocence. “Wowie, J.G! Guess it ain't by yankee or workin' yer gonna die, but by a grand hangin'! Maybe I oughta send Benny fer his drum t' send ya away!"

“Listen up, smart-aleck Coleman: I’m gonna yell fer the Captain and yer gonna be in trouble fer not helpin’ me! Lemme dOwn!” My voice is just startin' to change over so it cracks a lot, 'specially when I'm upset like I am now.

“Sheesh, keep yer britches on, Jones." Joey says, still grinnin', "I dunno how t’ get ya down without pullin’ ya and do ya really wanna wear those gross-lookin’ butternut coats? I thought not, so hang in there... hahah.” I growl and am about to send another insult down there, when I hear the refrains of “The Battle Cry of Freedom” down the road. It’s a yankee song and I’m hangin’ right over their path. “Shoot! Yankees! Run, boys, run!” Joey yelps as the others scatter.

“Hey! What about me! Come on! Lemme down!” I can see their wagons now. They got a ambulance, even. Must be a whole brigade. “Guys!” I can’t belive they’d leave me to die hangin’ in a tree, beat to death by some bluebelly yankees. The scouts come first and see me right off. They’re a couple’a boys a little older than I am.

“Hey, Mikey, come and look at this!” I sulk as much as I can and blow my hair outta my face. The one part right down the bridge of my nose don't budge. I give the yankee the dirtiest look I can manage.

“Wow. Wonder who hung out this little Secesh to dry?” His friend, Mikey, I guess, nudges my boot with the barrel of his rifle. I growl deep in my throat and feel my face burn with anger. Secesh is short for "secessionist" Joey says, and all of us rebels know it to be a mean name that the yankees call us, kinda like how we call 'em bluebellies and sometimes even the real mean name mudsills. “Hey Jimmy, think we ought’a help him down?” Wait... he’s Southern! I’m gonna be killed by a traitory? ‘Land’s sake, can it get any worse?

“Here, Mikey, you go up the tree and try to unhook his jacket. And you,” he looks right at me, “don’t ever say that all of us Southern Unionists are terrible people. We still know to help one of our own when they’re in trouble!”

“I ain’t one o’ you and I never will be. Harrah for the Confederacy! Down with the Union!” And then I drop outta the tree and hit the ground with a puff of dust. My cap hits the ground right beside me and the yankee boys have already headed away as I right myself up. Then I scamper away and find the other boys in a clearin', swattin’ at skeeters ‘n mournin’ the loss ‘o poor me. “And I see what a whole lotta work y’all put into savin’ me, too!” I huff as I join ‘em. They all look on in surprise until I say, “They’re Southerners. Still Lincoln-boys, though.” We all hiss and curse quietly at the traitors.

When we make it back to the camp, Captain Johnson is waitin’ for us. Of course, the first thing he notices is my ripped coat.

“Jones! What happened to you?” “I got stuck up in a tree, is all.” I say. None of us mention the yankee brigade. No use in startin' a fight. Maybe them scout boys thought I was on my own. Must've, or they'd've gone runnin' for the entire rest of the company at least. The Captain sighs and points me to our brigade’s hospital cart.

“Go see if they can fix it up, boy. If not we don’t have any more gray coats, you know!”

“Yessir!” I call out, runnin’ towards the cart. I don't wanna wear the yellow-brown dyed jackets the newer recruits wear. The kind nurses take my coat off to go fix it up, and one notices somethin’ as she’s close to me.

“Hey, Jones... you ever been checked for graybacks?”

“No ma’am.”

“Well... I think you’ve got ‘em. We’ll wash your hair in carbolic soap and hope for it, alright?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Yuck, lice. That 'splains why my head's been itchy. Thought it was just skeeters but I guess not. A funny thing, though: Yankees call us "graybacks" because until recently all of us wore gray coats. Also I think they know it's another word for lice, and are comparin' us with vermin which ain't kind at all. I feel kinda off, actually, and I don't think it's the lice. I feel kinda hot, but shivery at the same time, and now that I ain't movin' I feel a little achy. One 'o the nurses walkin' by notices me there and asks if I'm okay. I manage out a "yes ma'am." and she sorta frowns.

"You don't look too well. I'm gonna check up on you." She comes back with a bottle and a strange instrument. She sees me lookin' a little scared at the thing in her hand so she smiles in a friendly way. "This," she indicates the instrument, "Is a thermometer. My daddy was a doctor in Europe and brought it back. It tells us if you've got a fever or not. We're probably the only brigade in the whole Southern army that's got one, so feel lucky." I would've, if I hadn't also felt sick. She has me put the thing in my mouth for a while and then she pulls it out and looks me over. "You're runnin' a fever all right. You got measles and pox before?"

"Yes, ma'am." I say.

"How about mumps and scarlet fever?"

"I ain't had scarlet fever yet, ma'am, but I got mumps as a kid."

"Tsk..." She makes me take off my shirt. She don't ask 'bout the raised-up lines 'cross my back from bein' whipped at school. Boys jus' got scars sometimes, so they don't never ask.

"Well, you don't got a rash anywhere so it ain't that." She squishes my arm, then puts her fingers on my wrist to count my pulse and asks if I been fightin' or gotten cut by anything as of recent. I answer I ain't. She nods and keeps lookin'.

"Your limbs are in good order and you ain't been injured yet so it certainly can't be dropsy or infection, so you likely got malaria, like they called it at my school up North. It's easy for soliders to get, 'specially with all the runnin' around and swimmin' in odd places you young'uns do."

"What's malaria?" I get scared 'cuz I ain't heard that word before. The nurse puts her hand on my shoulder 'cuz she knows I'm scared.

"You boys call it 'fever 'n augue.' Or, I grew up callin it the 'shakes.' You get it by bein' out in the swamps too long. One 'o the things it does is cause a sky-high fever that'll make you start shiverin'. Lucky for you, we got a cure for it." She pours me somethin' in a cup, "Here, drink this to help you sleep. It'll be a few days before we can get some quinine to dose you with to cure it. You been coughin' at all?" "No, ma'am." I always thought skeeters caused fevers, not the swamps. I guess Sarah was wrong, then. "Well at least we know it ain't consumption and you ought'a be thankful for that." As if to make her point one o' the men from Company C starts coughin' real gross, wet coughs in his bed. I think I got a lil' bit of consumption, 'cuz in the hot, wet swamps where the air is all thick and soggy I can't breathe too well sometimes and when that happens and I gotta do anything that makes me breathe harder, I start coughin'. I ain't died from it yet, but I bet I will someday.

"Yes, ma'am." I drink the stuff in the cup. It tastes sweet, and I catch a glimpse of the bottle and read 'Mother's Helper And Best Sleep Aide' on it. Yum... This is the stuff they give to babies in towns so's they don't cry all night. I'd always wondered why the lil'uns drank it without complaint. It's 'cuz it tastes like candy.

I'm helped into one o' the beds in the nurses' wagon and I fall asleep. Through the next few days I wake up once and a while, and sometimes a nurse is there to give me a sip of water or broth. Sometimes I keep it down and sometimes I end up leanin' over to the dish on the table next to me gaggin' and coughin' it all out. Always I lay back down and go to sleep. I'm havin' weird dreams too, where I think I hear boys talkin' all around me, but then I wake up and it's nothin'. I'm seein' things too I think when I open my eyes one time and Sarah's hoverin' over me and tellin' me to not give up just yet, like when I was little and got measles real bad. I wake up beggin' to be put nearer to the fire 'cuz I'm cold, shiverin' a lil' bit too, and they put more blankets on me. Next time I wake up it's 'cuz I got too hot and can't kick the blanket off me well 'nuff 'cuz the sickness made me real weak. I start talkin' crazy, too, askin' where my mama is, and where Sarah is and all'a that. I think I even one time asked for the plantation cat, Susie, too.

After a week of this they start wakin' me way too often, I think to give me a bitter somethin' in a cup, which I turn my head away from every time 'til they get another nurse to hold me still and make me drink it. Soon I start to get better. As I stop havin' the awful fever dreams and wake up real, one of the nurses asks me if I got family from Mexico. I don't, at least, I don't think I do. She says I was talkin' Spanish when I was out. Strange. I can give myself my own medicine now, and got enough presence in my head to make myself drink it like I make myself eat our gross rations and how I made myself eat greens at school. After a week of gettin' medicine, as I'm gettin' ready to go stay the first night back at my station in the powder wagon, I learn that two of the younger boys fell sick a day after me and neither of 'em made it.

I did, and it's a pleasure to both me and the other company boys when I'm back in my place in the wagon the next night.


	14. Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. and the other boys fight their first battle.

We're gettin' ready to do our first real battle, against yankees who wanna kill us. I'm both excited and terrfied at the same time. I'm given a rifle to put on my back and I have my knife in my belt and our battle flag in my hands. As our boy who was born on secession day, I get to carry the flag with it's bright red background, dark blue X and the clean white stars standin' out on the blue. Drummer Boy Benny is actin' as powder boy 'cuz it was our powder boy that died of fever back when I was sick. He's got a bright orange band on his arm to show he's under twelve, so maybe he'll be spared. We've been told to holler and whoop like demons from the underworld when we charge, to scare the enemies. We all tried doin' it soon as we were told we were expected to, and the sound really does seem otherworldy, 'specially when we all hit as high as we can with our voices. I can't imagine what a thousand men and boys all doin' it sounds like. Probably terrifyin'.

Then we do charge, shoutin' and whoopin' and makin' all the noise we can. Then we ain't doin' it no more as we start gettin' hit. I jam my flagpole in the ground and take my rifle from my back and start tryin' to fire it. I need to reload, so I grab a cartriage from the pouch on my belt, tear it open with my teeth and go to put it in the rifle. As I fumble with my gun, Joey grabs me and shouts something and starts draggin' me away, then I hear a thud and a cry of pain next to me, and I look over and see Joey clutching his chest as a dull red stain grows under his hand. He goes limp and his eyes lose all their light and all at once I see what he was tryin' t' get me t' run from. I see the cannon fire straight into our powder wagon and am blasted down by the force of it explodin', even all the way out here, and I hear men and boys shriekin' in agony as they're burnt and blown up 'n the cannon booms again and everything feels hot and burnt up still and I cain't take it no more so everything fades away to black...

I wake to pitiful groanin' all around me. I stand up, and 'cuz I happen to be right by the tattered flag I pick it back up and look around. I ain't hurt at all. Joey is lying there, his brown eyes still half open and the front of his gray coat stained dull red where the bullet went into his chest. I try to hold back tears as the phrase fer dead men he told me echos in my head: Yankee or Rebel, every boy shot on the field was somebody's darlin'. Benny, our powder-slash-drummer boy is dead too. He's burned so bad he's hardly recognizable save for his small size and the torn orange band on his arm. I nudge him with my foot and he just flops over.

The whole company is gone, in fact, 'cuz we weren't too big to start with, having lost about twenty to the hospitals with fever and consumption and typhoid and dropsy, and the rest of us were all in formation around our powder wagon when the yankee cannon blew it up. I hear a terrible screamin' and I see it's Bess one of our horses, her legs a'flailin' as she tries to get up even though she's trapped under the burnt up wagon and burnt herself horribly. I see she's bleedin' and her back legs ain't workin', so I pet her head to calm her, put the barrel of my rifle against her forehead and pull my trigger. There's a loud bang, my arms jerk back with the recoil, and the screamin' stops.

Breathin' hard and tryin' not to cry 'cuz boys don't cry, I stand back up, pick up my flag, and look around again. Then I see him. Holdin' a yankee flag and starin' at me again is the soldier that looks like me. I jam my flagpole into the ground, put up my rifle and try to fire, but it just clicks uselessly. I reach for my cartridge pouch and find it empty. _Damn._ Some mudsill sonuva-gun must'a taken all my ammo when I was out.

I look at the soldier helplessly, and he makes a motion with his hand that means "I ain't got nothin' neither, boy."

"Who are you?" I ask out loud. He don't answer. "I know it was you in the berry patch last summer, too. What's your name, Yankee?" Still nothin'. I give him the worst glare I can, bein' a thirteen-year-old with no ammo and kinda smallish for my age, and he turns silently and walks back to the yankee side where I can hear them celebratin'.

_"The Union forever,_

_Hurrah! boys, hurrah!_

_Down with the traitors,_

_Up with the stars;_

_While we rally round the flag, boys,_

_Rally once again,_

_Shouting the battle cry of Freeeeee-dom!”_

I feel a feelin' of anger risin' up in my stomach and to this day I swear I saw forty or fifty blue caps look over their barricade to watch one scrawny rebel boy singin' out at the top 'o his hardly-changed voice in reply to their song,

_“Our Dixie forever,_

_She'll never have a loss!_

_Down with the eagle,_

_And up with the cross;_

_We will rally 'round the bonnie flag,_

_We'll rally once again,_

_Shout, shout the battle cry of Freeeeee-dom!"_

Every southerner on that field starts cheerin' for me as I walk up to a man wearin' a gray officer's uniform. “Sir, my name is J.G Jones of Company B of the Independence brigade, and we was blown up by a yankee’s lucky shot into our powder wagon. Can I be allowed to join as a private in your company, to keep up the fight?” He nods, still I think pretty shocked at the fact I did somethin' like and and didn't get shot.

My friends may all be dead and in Heaven, but I ain't licked yet, and I'm gonna fight 'til the end. And so, my new company marches off to the beat of a drum, and we all hope to a Southern victory.


	15. Nationhood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> J.G. fights his last battle, and winds up captured by the Yankee soldier that looks like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight warning for graphic descriptions of battle wounds. I don't happen to think it's so bad, but others might think otherwise so here is the warning.

It's been a few years since the First Battle in my life, and I'm probaby about fifteen. Maybe sixteen. I ain't been keepin' track. I joined up one of the older companies in a bigger brigade, with General Robert E. Lee himself commandin'. I ain't seen the yankee that looks like me since First Battle. We're losin' the war, I know.We're also in Texas. All those years ago when I first joined, Joey was right sayin' the Texas accents sound a lot like me. It was also a far march to here. We're tired, but we ain't gonna give up yet.

  
We're singin' to beat on the yankees' morale, lettin' 'em know that we may be losin' right now, but we ain't down about it.

  
_"Advance the flag of Dixie, hurrah! hurrah!_  
_In Dixie's land I'll take my stand,_  
_to live and die for Dixie-"_

  
Oh, those yankee boys are clever, makin' up lyrics to our tunes and they think they can git a rise outta us by singin' over us:

  
_"We'll all go down to Dixie, away! away!_  
_Each Dixie boy must understand_  
_that he must mind his Uncle Sam..."_

  
Then the fightin' starts and we ain't singin' no more. I figured out a way to make the cannons fire faster then ever, so I'm in charge of that. That means I gotta stand right by the powder wagon. I’m kinda scared, considerin’ what happened last time I was in a battle with a powder wagon. I don't see the mysterious yankee in the screaming crowds of blue, but I know he must be here.

  
Soon, we're outta cannonballs and I have to go and fight with the rest of the rebel brigade, so I do. I'm firin' the rifle, a .44 now ‘cuz I’m full-grown ‘n I start out doin’ our Rebel Yell but soon I devolve 'nto screamin' every insult I know at 'em and when I see the cannon aim right at me, I stop dead. I see a flash of orange hair under a dark blue cap with gold trim and and I look right into the yankee solider's green eyes, dark as a forest at night and right before I hear the boom 'o the cannon, could that be recognition that I see in the eyes of the orange-haired yankee and then I'm on the ground and pain is explodin' through my whole body 'n then I feel nothin'...

* * *

  
I wake up in all the pain in the world. My head's throbbin' so much I feel dizzy 'n hazy 'n my leg hurts so bad I can't hardly feel it on the ground. My glasses are lyin' cracked just out 'o my reach, which might explain why everythin's so blurry. I look at my hand. I'm still wearin' them stupid yellow gloves commanders of fire teams are made to wear. I manage to look back at my leg, which I soon learn ain't there. There's only a pool of blood 'n a stump endin' right below my hip. I lay back and try to get in order where I am and what I'm doin' hopin' to clear my mind.

  
My name is Jason G. Jones. I'm fifteen, maybe sixteen. I'm from Fredrickson Plantation in South Carolina, but sound like I live in Texas. When I was five I got taken into the plantation by Sarah, a slave girl. When I was eight I went to school in Missouri. When I was twelve I joined the army. When I was thirteen I fought my first battle. When I was probably fourteen I got made fire-team leader in the 96th Virginia Brigade. Now, I'm lyin' on a field with one leg blasted to bits by a yankee cannon...

  
I know I'm probably gonna die, but I ain't gonna die without a fight. Though bleedin' the way I am, and with my head still poundin', I'm feelin' less-than ready to actually fight.  
As I'm lyin' there thinkin' to them back at Big Farm, _"Look, see, look where yer lil' J.G is now..."_ Some black boots come and their owner stops and looks down at me. I look up at him. I can hear the boomin' in the background, hazy and bleary like my head. The cannon must've knocked out my hearin' some, too. I can't see much, just a dark-colored blur lookin' down at me.

  
The owner of the boots picks me up and sets me in a wagon. I can see the dark blue of his coat as he turns and picks up somethin' else. It's my bedroll and glasses. Everything looks like it's slow motion and blurry, and the sounds are so far away, it seems like I ain't really there. He puts the glasses, broken as they are, on my face, and puts the rolled up blanket and spare shirt with my old .22 in the middle by my side. The wagon rattles off, with me and all my things in it, and I fall out of the feelin' world again.

* * *

  
I wake up to a unfamiliar room and two hushed mens' voices. I guess my hearin' is fine after all. My head still hurts, but I feel warm and clean and I can see my dirty, ragged gray coat hung on the end of the bed. I'm in my gauzy thin cotton shirt and just my pants, I guess. My leg-stump don't hurt no more, so I take a look at it.

  
It gets the two men's attention when I yell out in surprise at my leg bein' back, good as new. I know I must'a died now, I must be in Heaven, with Joey and Benny and all of 'em and maybe my ma and daddy and for sure poor Sarah who Missy wrote to me and said was sick with consumption 'n I wanna get up and see all of 'em but a blond man comes and pushes me down.

  
"Now now, boy, you'd best stay down and let your head clear itself up. It took an hour for your leg to heal, so you aren't quite well yet." He ain't Southern, that's for sure, but he ain't a yankee neither. Maybe he's from Canada, or Mexico, or France, or one o' them places I heard of back in school.

  
"But sir I gotta go t' see Sarah 'n Joey 'n Benny-"

  
"Who? What are you on about? Where do you think you are?"

  
"Heaven, sir, 'cuz otherwise my leg wouldn'a healed up like it did, all whole 'gain and-" Then the man's eyes kind of soften a little, like he knows what he says next is gonna confuse the hell outta me.

  
"You're not in Heaven, love. You're alive. You survived the battle."

  
"But... my leg... it was blasted t' bits... How'd it grow back if I ain't dead and gone to Heaven?"

  
"You were right, Alfred. He doesn't know anything about his nature." Alfred steps forward. He's the yankee man, the one that I been seein' everywhere.

  
"You!" I cry out and try to get up to face him. The blond man tries to hold me down but as I squirm he stops tryin', sayin',

  
"If you're that determined to, then go ahead and sit up, I suppose."

  
I do, and feel dizzy, but I glare at the yankee. He looks back at me, then reaches out to brush the hair from the bridge of my nose. A weird feelin' comes over me as he touches the hair and I slap his hand away. "Stop that! Goddamn Yank!" Despite my spittin’ and glarin’ he stays eerily calm.

  
"Jason G. Jones... personification of the Confederate States of America, right?"

  
"Ya got my name, but what's all this person-fication about? Some bluebelly garbage they feed y’all? Is that what it is!?" Alfred sits on the chair across from my bed. When I get mad I start talkin' like a slave again, and that makes me madder yet.

  
"England'll explain to you." Alfred says, too calm for my likin'.

  
"What? I'm confused! Lemme go so I can get back to the brigade! The general'll have my head if I'm gone too long! I'm the best fire-team leader he's got! I can’t afford to be held hostage by some crazy mudsill sonuva-" I'm startin' to be less man and more scared now. The blond man with the green eyes puts his hand on my shoulder which shuts me up quick.

"You're a very special sort of person, you know. Unable to die by human hands, able to live for thousands of years... It's a pity you don't know anything about it."

  
I cross my arms and glare at Alfred the Yankee. "I'mma let you tell me all about it, but only 'cuz I bet y’all won't let me go 'til you do." Blond man motions to Alfred. Alfred looks me right in the eyes.

  
"I knew it as soon as I saw you that you were different than those other boys. My country, the United States of America, had a war with ourselves. Our kind, 'nations', represent our people and their health. When mine started fighting themselves, and I didn't feel any distress, I knew something had happened. What happened was you. You came into existance when the Confederacy seceded, maybe even before then. You aren't just a confederate solider, Jason. You are the Confederacy itself. Or were. The war's over now."  
"Y'all are a couple'a crazy-ass yankees..." I muttered. I didn't like the fact I lost a battle. Not at all. But the nation thing explained why I thought the south was so great, even with our poor whites bein' beaten out in prices by planters and the planters then mistreatin' the slaves... It explained why Sarah thought I was an angel when the welts on my back healed up right before her eyes. It really did explain why my leg somehow grew back. Maybe Alfred and blondie weren't crazy.

  
"Prove it." I say. Alfred pulls out a knife- my knife, I realize -and holds it out, handle first to me. He takes his jacket off and then undoes his shirt, showin’ his bare chest to me.

  
"Stab me. Anywhere on my body." he commands me.

  
I do, right in his stomach, thinkin' if he's crazy and this is lies at least then he'll be dead. It takes all my willpower to not twist the knife to cause him more pain. He grunts a bit as I pull the knife back out. Bein' a huntin' knife the blade's about as long as my hand and got a serrated edge for carvin'. Right now it's bloody down to the hilt, and the deep red blood also oozes from the wound in Alfred's stomach. Then it stops. The bleedin' stops, and as blondie uses a cloth to wipe away the blood, I see that there ain't even a scar.

  
"Is that enough proof for you?" Alfred asks.

  
I nod. Even if that nation stuff ain’t true, there’s somethin’ goin’ on here. "So... I'm not just some Southern soldier... I am the South? Like all of it?" Both of them nod at me.

  
Somethin' in me wants to believe them, so even though I don't trust Alfred and blondie, I choose to think that 'cuz I heal and don't get older, they were right.


End file.
